


Didn't Fit in My Chest, So I Wore It on My Sleeve

by downjune



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Break Up, Consent Issues, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Make Up, Past Relationship(s), Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:08:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/pseuds/downjune
Summary: This had been building since Ottawa, and here it was, clean-out day. Matt was not forgiven.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to say I'm nearly finished working through my MAF grief, but that's probably a lie. This is the bulk of it, though. The fic is for two kiss fic prompts from tumblr: the Empty Kiss and the Can't Let Go Yet kiss, and takes place from clean-out day to just before the start of the 2017-18 season.
> 
> Also, I like to think it sits adjacent to the [Game-Winner verse](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9472613) I haven't explored too much yet. Basically, the idea is that in order to build rookie confidence and prove their place on the team, the rookies have "access" to the vets for whatever they need. So you'll see a familiar ship from that fic in this one, though I don't know if the events of this fic take place in that verse specifically. This may be an AU of an AU, lol.

Matt could feel it coming. Nine games was a long time for it to build. He’d thought—hoped—when Flower handed the Cup to him, maybe the frosty silence would end. Flower’s smile was so wide, his hands so big and warm on Matt’s sides, even through his pads. He’d thought he must be forgiven. They won, after all. And it wasn’t Matt’s fault what happened. Coach’s decision was Coach’s decision.

But he’d been wrong. This had been building since Ottawa, and here it was, clean-out day. He was not forgiven.

“Say it, go ahead. I can take it.”

Flower shook his head, gathering up his wrapped sticks and his duffle. “I have nothing to say. I’m not that guy, Matty.” He kept his voice clipped and low. The room was mostly emptied out. This was not the place, but Matt didn’t care. They were out of time, and Flower wouldn’t even look at him.

“You can if you want to, now. Don’t fucking coddle me or protect me or whatever bullshit you think you still need to do.” _You’re leaving, and I’m staying. I won. I earned this._

Flower aimed a blank smile at nobody and headed for the door. “Believe me, I’m not protecting you.”

“Then—”

“I’m not out to hurt you, either.”

Following him into the hall, Matt snorted loudly. “Then just be a dick, for once in your life, would you? What is this Saint Fleury bullshit? Don’t be the perfect teammate. Say what you have to say to my face. You haven’t talked to me in weeks—there’s obviously something on your mind.”

Flower waved at a few staff, his smile fixed and tight. He’d said his goodbyes. Matt had watched and waited for his turn, but it hadn’t come, and now they were aimed toward the garage. Flower was going to drive away and the next time Matt saw him, he’d be across the ice in—

“Fine.” Flower whirled on him, then cast a quick look up and down the hall and tipped his chin toward an empty office. Still the professional. Matt opened the door when Flower didn’t move to do it himself. If Matt really wanted to have this conversation, he was going to earn every second of it. 

When the door was shut behind them, Flower set his sticks against the wall and pushed the lock on the knob. A thrill shot up Matt’s spine like this was more than a year ago. The inversion of how they’d first started—Matt backing Flower into someplace dark and quiet, Flower’s grin small and secret, just for them and what they did. 

This wasn’t going to be like that.

“You want to know what I’m thinking?” Flower asked. He was clean-shaven except for that patch below his lip, black hair mostly covered by his Pirates cap except for the long bits by his ear. He was somehow more perfect than Matt had ever seen now he’d finally stopped smiling. 

Matt lifted his chin. “Yeah.”

Flower nodded sharply. “Okay. Nothing should be a surprise to you, except if you really are as arrogant as you look.” Matt blinked hard, and Flower’s mouth twitched. “You took my net. You took my team. You took my home. And I know, hockey is a business. _You_ should know that too. I’m not your fucking friend. I let you—” He lowered his voice and swallowed hard. “I let you _have_ me because my whole life is here. That was the deal. Those were the terms. If I want to stay here, I let you have me, however you need. It was worth it to stay, for them. For another Cup. But, Matty, I say this from my heart— _that’s done now_.”

Matt wet his lips and breathed in to speak. But with his mouth open, no words came. He stood there like a—like a stupid kid. His heart clenched and his face burned, and there was nothing he could say. He’d asked for this. He’d earned this.

“Is this what you wanted? Me to say these things?” Flower asked him. His shoulders relaxed on a deep breath, and he ducked his head slightly trying to look Matt in the eye.

Matt didn’t dare close them, they burned too much. He twitched a nod. “Yeah. Thanks.” His voice came out like sandpaper, but he somehow managed to swallow. “I should’ve…I should’ve known that stuff, I guess.”

Flower shook his head, exhaustion finally visible in the lines around his eyes. He exhaled sharply. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.” He put his hand on Matt’s arm, and Matt shuddered.

“No.” He shrugged off Flower’s grip. “I’m the idiot.” He reached for the door, relieved that at least his eyes stayed dry when he blinked, but Flower stopped him, closing his hand over Matt’s around the doorknob. 

“Don’t say anything,” Matt preempted. “I don’t need you to—”

“I’m not protecting you, asshole,” Flower spat, reading him like a goddamn book. “But the truth is shitty, and I’m sorry I told you. I’m sorry, Matty.”

Matt shook his head. “I’m not.” He needed to go sit in the dark and lick his wounds for at least a week, but Flower’s honesty was giving him a different, more potent kind of rush. He was maybe communicating honestly with Marc-Andre for the first time since he’d gotten his call-up.

With one hand still on the knob, Flower gripped the back of Matt’s head with the other. He tugged and Matt went. The kiss was a hard press of lips between his eyebrows, firm and dry. 

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” Flower said against his skin. The warm gust of his breath—more intimate than the kiss itself—wedged a lump in Matt’s throat that wasn’t coming loose without some work. 

He twitched a nod and let Flower unlock the door. When he’d gone, Matt slumped into the chair set in front of the desk. He put his elbows on his knees, and this time, when he closed his eyes, they were wet.


	2. Chapter 2

After the awards and the draft, Sid tagged along to dinner with Marc-Andre’s new teammates because he was a stubborn son of a bitch who didn’t know when to quit. Marc-Andre wasn’t saying goodbye. Sid could wait until his shitty beard grew in again and he had to fly back to Pittsburgh or miss raising the Championship banner, and Marc-Andre still wouldn’t say it.

But try telling Sid that. 

Marc-Andre had no appetite, even though the food looked like it should taste good. Engo was a peach and eager to give Marc-Andre every tip in the book on living in Vegas—where to eat, the good school districts, the good neighborhoods. He loved living there, and he wanted Marc-Andre to love it, too, which helped.

For his part, Sid made small talk with the other guys and stubbornly waited for Marc-Andre to acknowledge that this was it—they parted ways in the morning. They were in the same hotel thanks to the Pens’ travel agent who Marc-Andre hadn’t thought to stop using yet, so he wasn’t surprised when Sid followed him up the elevator, didn’t volunteer what floor his room was on, and followed right to Marc-Andre’s door.

“Want to come in?” Marc-Andre asked dryly, gesturing inward. Sid went first without acknowledging his sarcasm. When they were shut inside, he perched on the end of the bed and put his hands on his knees. 

“You’re being really weird,” he said.

Marc-Andre hung up his suit jacket, then tugged his tie loose. “Yeah? I think everything else is weird, and I’m being normal.”

“Maybe,” Sid allowed. “This is all definitely weird. But you’ve also been kind of a dick, which is making it harder.”

Marc-Andre huffed. “It’s not easy for me—why should I make it easy for anybody else?” He turned, hands on his hips to find Sid utterly composed. Patient and steady and clear-eyed. Marc-Andre had known him for half his life, spent twelve years beside him on planes and buses, and knew every inch of his heart. How was he supposed to give Sid what he wanted, here at the end? How could he put what was owed into this moment? 

Sid shrugged. “So, talk to me. Yell if you want—I would if I were you.”

Marc-Andre smiled, a twisted, painful thing, and shook his head. “No.”

“You’re not gonna hurt my feelings, but even if you did, you know it’d be okay.”

“Fuck off, man,” he said without heat. “Just leave it. Why does everyone want me to talk it out? We’re not girls—we don’t need to talk about our feelings.”

Sid didn’t rise to the bait. “You might feel better if you did.”

“I’m telling you I wouldn’t.”

Sid’s gaze somehow got shrewder, and fuck, he wasn’t going to leave without getting something out of Marc-Andre. 

The understanding was, rookies had access to the vets for whatever they needed. They asked in good faith, and they received—advice, support, sex, discipline. But he, Sid, Geno, and Tanger, Kuni and Horny—it was supposed to be easier with them. No obligation. Sid had been there for Marc-Andre for twelve years, without question and without asking for anything in return.

Here at the end, he was calling in that debt.

Tugging his tie from his collar, Marc-Andre dropped into the chair opposite the bed. He turned it and faced Sid head-on. 

“I told Matty, and it sucked,” he said. “I didn’t feel any better—I felt worse. It’s better just to leave it.”

“You told him…”

“That it was over. He’s not my rookie anymore.”

Sid nodded. “That’s reasonable. He isn’t your rookie anymore.”

Marc-Andre shrugged, frustrated. “But I was angry. It was clean-out day, so everyone wanted to say goodbye to me. I didn’t want to talk to him, but he pushed, and I…I was angry. I was tired.”

He and Matty weren’t like Sid and Shearsy or Geno and Rusty or Tanger and Dumo. Shearsy hadn’t taken anything from Sid in the course of their mentorship. Hadn’t become the sole focus of his season—the most constant, the most intense relationship on the team. Sid hadn’t lost what Marc-Andre had lost. It was probably a goalie thing, but it felt like a Matty thing.

He looked at Sid, asking him to understand the difference without Marc-Andre having to spell it out. “I wanted to just leave it,” he said again.

Sid wet his lips and twitched a nod, his gaze difficult to meet with its honesty. He looked long and hard until it felt like all the air was gone from the room. “This has been impossible for you,” he finally said. “And you didn’t want any of us to know.”

“There was nothing more you could have done.” Marc-Andre looked at his hands, relief and gratitude filling him like the window had been opened. “You’re already the best captain—the best friend I could ask for.”

A strange laugh escaped Sid’s mouth. “Fuck,” he said quietly. “I wish you’d—” His voice wavered, and he cut himself off, but it was a reprieve Marc-Andre felt at this display of emotion. Anything was better than dragging his own out for evaluation. For Sid’s pity. Or for his guilt.

He couldn’t say it any clearer. “I wanted to leave it.” 

Sid sniffed hard once and pushed to his feet. “I get that. I do. But not everybody works that way, so you might have to let your friends tell you some stuff sometimes. Like, for example: I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. I’ve never sat with anybody else. I can’t stand the thought of another team having you—another captain having you like I did.”

Marc-Andre’s heart clenched into a tight, aching fist. What was the point of this pain? Did Sid really believe Marc-Andre didn’t know how much he was loved? How much he would be missed? The whole point of friendship was it didn’t require constant reaffirmation. Belief and faith were enough. 

Matty had taken everything Marc-Andre gave to him, his need as bottomless as his stomach. Sid and Tanger were never like that, and he loved them for it. They had to have known how he felt. He shouldn’t have to say it.

Standing up, he braced as Sid took two quick strides across the room to hug him. He was ready, but Sid still squeezed the breath out of him. This was nothing like that stilted half hug in front of the cameras. Marc-Andre held on for all he was worth, but he pulled back first because one of them had to. 

Sid gripped his arms tightly, his eyes red, and took a breath. “There. Okay.”

It sounded final. And for probably the hundredth time in the last two weeks, a lump wedged in Marc-Andre’s throat. But it wasn’t anger this time. Not here. Grief took hold in its place and threatened to crush him where he stood—everything he didn’t want and had worked so hard to avoid. 

And Sid knew it. “Okay. I don’t have to say it.” He gave Marc-Andre another long look, turned, and walked out.

With the click of the door closing, Marc-Andre swallowed. He rubbed his elbow and gripped the muscle of his forearm, balancing on the edge between swallowing everything back and running after Sid. Crying it out like the scared kid in him wanted to do.

In the complete silence of his room, he thought about texting Matty, just for the distraction. Maybe to apologize. The world hung perfectly still, waiting for him to make up his mind.

When his phone buzzed in his pocket, his heart leapt as he snatched it out.

Engo wanted to take him house hunting this week.

Marc-Andre drew in a slow breath as time ground forward again. He took another and tapped out a quick _That’d be great, thanks_. Then he stripped and retreated to the bathroom to shower off the grime of the awards show.

*

Marc-Andre dreamed about him that summer more than he’d have liked. More than he thought he would. The scruff of Matty’s beard against the back of his neck, Matty’s voice, smug and low in his ear, full of humor. Matty next to him in the dressing room, their pads knocking any time they moved.

Others weren’t so nice. Matty stuck out on the ice in a shootout, letting in goal after goal in a game that never ended. Losing his teeth after a collision knocked his helmet off. Skating to him through melting ice, Marc-Andre’s pads as heavy as sandbags, ice-water pouring down his sleeves. 

It was always Matty, just out of his periphery, his body a solid line of heat at Marc-Andre’s back. He woke up sweating and hard, or just sweating and sad, and spent the rest of the day baking in the sun at Tanger’s house, dunking himself in his pool, and drinking way too much wine. It was never enough to stop the dreams. 

When Dumo showed up late in July, brown as a nut but still with apple-red cheeks and a smile big enough to light a city block, Marc-Andre shut himself in the bathroom and stared at his phone. He tapped out a message to Matt, _Did you know about Dumo and Tanger?_

He might not. Dumo had come up a little ahead of the rest of the Wilkes crew, and Matty had never been one to gossip, unlike the other rugrats. But Marc-Andre wasn’t about to text any of them. He didn’t text Matty, either.

Dumo worked magic on Tanger’s barbeque, drank terrible beer, and looked at Tanger like he was Christmas every day, over and over. Tanger, for his part, knew exactly how lucky he was to find someone actually attracted to his prickliness, if the quick, embarrassed looks he shot Marc-Andre were any indication.

There was something generous about them that defied everything Marc-Andre understood about the rookie-vet dynamic. Dumo wasn’t Tanger’s rookie anymore—he’d gotten his fat contract—but he was still younger. His place in the hierarchy was muddier now without his rookie status, and Tanger sometimes leaned into that. Dumo seemed to like it. Tanger really liked it when Dumo leaned back.

Witnessing something private, and a little confused about it, Marc-Andre quit coming around so often.

Sometime in August, it occurred to him that maybe he’d been wrong about what Matt had taken from him. His job and his city, sure. His best friends would spend more than half the year halfway across the country. But there were other things he hadn’t known he would miss.

The exact texture of Matt’s happy trail, for one. He’d taken that with him back to Thunder Bay, along with his dumb sweatpants and ridiculous sunglasses. His insufferable hipster music and the headphones Marc-Andre coveted for his own. His respectable French that he hesitated to use because Marc-Andre’s and Tanger’s would always be better, and if Matty couldn’t be the best, he didn’t want to play. 

Two weeks before he was due to report in Vegas for camp, Marc-Andre confronted the very real possibility that he was the one hung up on this. That Matt had understood the nature of the relationship all along, and hadn’t been asking for more from Marc-Andre on that last day like he’d thought. He’d been ready to end it, and Marc-Andre had been the one to lash out like a scorned lover. It was not a pleasant thought.

This time when he wrote out his text, he hit _send._


	3. Chapter 3

Matt almost said no when Flower asked to come visit. He almost said, _Thanks, I don’t enjoy humiliating myself, even from the comfort of my own home._ But the beauty of texting allowed him to rethink that and delete it. 

Instead he sent, _It’d be great to see you_ , because that was the truth.

He spent the next few days figuring out what they should do in Thunder Bay—where he should take Flower to eat, if they should take a boat tour, whether Flower liked the outdoors or indoor stuff like laser tag. Matt loved his hometown. It was scrappy and beautiful, but it didn’t compare to Montreal or Pittsburgh, and he’d hate for Flower to think badly of it.

The night before he was due to fly in, Matt decided they’d play it by ear. Flower probably wasn’t coming to be a tourist, but Matt didn’t want to speculate on his actual reasons for coming, either. If it was just to reiterate that they’d never been friends, that Flower had never even liked him, and that every time they’d had sex, he’d lain back and thought of Pittsburgh, he could have waited until they faced each other across the center line in warmup.

Not that it would work to psych Matt out. He’d already spent more than a few nights thinking and dreaming about the possibility. 

The fact of Marc-Andre Fleury’s anger was not novel. Matt had seen him angry plenty of times, but it’d never been directed at Matt with that much honesty before. Never been so personal or so viciously precise, aimed right where it would hurt the most—Matt should have seen it coming. Not that Flower resented him for taking his net, or even for the terms of their relationship. Both of those sucked, sure, but it was that Matt hadn’t _known_. 

In retrospect, his ignorance was staggering. And it was this, more than anything, that almost had him turning down Flower’s request. Matt had a profound aversion to feeling like an idiot.

But when his buzzer sounded, and it was Flower’s voice on his intercom, tired and tense, Matt let him up before he’d finished asking. A few seconds later, he heard Flower’s tread on his stairs and opened his door to find him there in jeans and a t-shirt, a cap that said _Frenchie_ pulled low to hide his face. 

He lifted his head, and Matt’s throat went dry. His skin freckled and tan, Marc-Andre looked like he’d spent the whole summer outside. He never really bulked up from training and good rest, but the thickness of his wrists where he gripped his duffle bag made Matt weak in the knees. 

Matt had tasted the salt on Flower’s skin right there, Flower had probably hated it, and Matt had never known.

He should never have told him he could come. Flower was right—they weren’t friends. Matt was in love with him, and this would be a fucking disaster. He could feel it.

“Hi,” Flower said, when Matt didn’t move or ask him in. 

Drawing in a sharp breath, Matt cleared his throat and stepped back. “Hey. Uh, long flight?”

Flower shrugged, then shook his head, dropping his bag by the door. “Not really. I’m just moving across the country, you know? It’s tiring as shit.”

“Right.”

Taking off his cap, Flower scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked around the foyer of Matt’s condo. “Your place is nice,” he said. “Good light.”

It was a shiny, expensive thing he’d bought with his shiny NHL salary. He’d probably buy something even shinier when his new contract kicked in. Right then, he felt young and out of place in it. He’d still never used his oven.

“Thanks—you want the tour? I’ll show you your room.”

“All right.” He gave Matt a quick once-over. “You didn’t have to dress up, you know.” 

Matt looked down at himself in confusion. He’d worn his favorite black pants and cardigan—this was not dressing—

The sunglasses holding his hair back slipped free, and he caught them before they fell. With growing suspicion, he glanced at Flower. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes. They’re cool.”

“I know you think so,” Marc-Andre said gently, a smile curling in the corners of his mouth. 

Matt felt his mouth twitch in answer, and he turned away to hide it. As he led the way down the hall to his guest room, he took a breath, some tension dissolving in his chest. 

Marc-Andre had reached out—had flown to Thunder Bay to see Matt before the start of his season. Maybe the wild, hopeful feeling at seeing his text hadn’t been as foolish or overly optimistic as he’d thought.

When it came to Flower, Matt could only think of the one thing he wouldn’t do for him, and since that had already destroyed their relationship once, and Marc-Andre was now a Golden Knight, everything else was on the table.

*

The cold came early here, blowing in from the west with nothing to block it and a lake to make it roar, and Flower wasn’t dressed properly.

“I’m going to the desert,” he grumbled, shivering. “I’m done with winter.” Still, he accepted the pullover Matt handed him and shrugged into it, zipping the collar up to cover his nose and tugging the sleeves over his hands. 

“It gets cold out there at night too, you know. And we could go inside,” Matt offered.

Flower shook his head. “I like it here,” he said. “I can’t believe you have a lake view.”

“Sort of a lake view. I couldn’t afford a unit on the front.” 

“Next year,” Flower said, craning his neck to get a look at the strip of inky black where the city lights ended and Lake Superior stretched to the horizon. Then he blew out a breath and tipped his head back. “Good stars, too.”

“Yeah.”

With Flower’s gaze upward, Matt sorted out what he’d wanted to say since they’d agreed to get Thai and eat it on his balcony instead of going out. They’d avoided Flower’s reasons for coming, as well as how their last conversation had ended, and stuck mainly to their training this summer and Flower’s house he was in the middle of buying.

But staring at the curve of his throat as he looked up, Matt let the words stumble out. “I wanted to say I was sorry if you thought I took what you gave me for granted. I didn’t think I had, but I’m realizing, I was wrong about that. So. I’m sorry I took what you gave me for granted. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Flower’s throat bobbed as he swallowed and let Matt’s words hang there between them. When he answered, he spoke to the sky. 

“What I said to you that day wasn’t fair.”

“It was the truth.”

“But it wasn’t fair.” Slowly, he let his gaze drop until he regarded Matt with dark, wet eyes. “I didn’t know what I was doing, either. I’d never…” He twitched a shrug. “I’d never had a rookie like you before. You know Zats was nothing like you.”

Matt nodded, held in place by Flower’s full attention. Something he’d missed terribly and hated missing. 

“I felt like you had swallowed my whole life,” Flower said quietly. “From the playoffs last year until this year, I was for you and that’s it. And then I got it all back for those two series, and I remembered what it was like to _not_ be only for you. It was a good feeling.” He looked over the railing at the lights of the city below, releasing Matt, and huddling a bit deeper into the collar of his borrowed pullover. “When I lost it again…I’ve never wanted to hate somebody that much.”

Biting the inside of his lip, Matt grimaced but kept quiet. Flower’s honesty hadn’t blunted at all over the summer now that it was loose, and the way it cut was still a painful kind of rush. 

“I never did, though,” he continued. “That was the hardest thing. I never really did. I couldn’t.”

“Because you still had to support me,” Matt bit out.

Marc-Andre shook his head. “No. That’s not it.”

“Then, what?”

“I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”

Matt waited, shivering as the breeze fluttered their napkins and cut through his sweater, but Flower didn’t seem to have anything else to say.

Matt wanted to tell him— _I don’t think you have it in you to hate anybody. Even when you should._

He’d gotten what he deserved for cornering Flower in Pittsburgh right after he’d said goodbye to his building and all the people in it. Matt had asked for it, and Flower’d given it. But he hadn’t wanted to, even then. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Matt. 

Here on his balcony, wearing his pullover, Flower hadn’t come to hurt him. Even if Matt felt a little like he was holding the slices his words had made closed with his fingers. 

*

Figuring it’d be a good idea to avoid anything overtly competitive that night, Matt didn’t offer video games and instead put in the new Star Wars movie. He ended up explaining the whole franchise to Flower when he didn’t recognize any of the returning characters. 

After Flower had dozed off for the second time, slumped at the other end of the couch, Matt shut off the TV and nudged him awake. “You should sleep if you’re tired.”

“I was sleeping, dick,” Flower grumbled, swatting at him.

“I meant in a bed. Come on, man, you don’t even have to go up any stairs.” He didn’t offer a hand, but Flower reached for one, so Matt hooked his arm and hauled him up.

Overbalancing, Flower stumbled into him, then righted himself, closer to Matt than he’d been all night. They walked from the living room down the hall to the guest room where Matt found his nerve and asked, “Why did you want to come here?”

Flower rubbed his eyes. “I’ve never been to Thunder Bay,” he said, “and I can see Jordie while I’m here.” Matt looked away with a frown. “And there’s some stuff I want to figure out before the season.”

Shooting him a quick glance, Matt found his gaze lowered. “Cool,” he finally answered.

Flower looked up. “Yeah. Bon nuit, Matty.”

The sound of his name in Flower’s mouth made his stomach jump, so he mumbled a quick reply and escaped to his room. 

When he’d brushed his teeth, he climbed into bed and shut the light off, even though he usually read for a few minutes to wind down. The light from the bathroom cut across his carpet at an angle until Flower went in and shut the door. Listening to the sink run, Matt waited as his eyes adjusted to the dark and wondered how it was that someone who didn’t even like him had traveled halfway across the country to _figure some stuff out before the season_.

The toilet flushed and the light flicked off just as the door opened, and Matt’s pulse began to pound. A shadow, darker than the dark hall paused in his doorway. The shadow leaned there for a moment, and Matt rolled onto his side before he could do anything stupid like open his mouth.

The air got thick as summer before a storm until Flower’s bedroom door shut, and Matt exhaled long and slow. 

Flipping onto his stomach, he pushed his arms up underneath his pillow. He could call up the exact feel of Flower under him like this. Matt pressed all along his back, pinning his hands above his head and kissing the hinge of his jaw as he arched and hissed, rubbing his face against the sheet. 

The memories of them had twisted and warped in the last two months until Matt had felt greedy and monstrous in what he’d done. In missing what they’d done.

He dropped off to sleep with the remembered feel of Flower’s gaze on him and spent the night somewhere between waking and dreaming. Every breath of air from his open window was Marc-Andre climbing into bed with him, pulling the blankets over them both, and rolling Matt over onto his front. Pressing him down and holding him. Spreading his legs and taking back what Matt took from him. 

He came awake early in the morning to tangled blankets and the sheet stuck to his belly and got up to start a load of laundry while Flower slept.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thank you to everbright for pointing out that this fic explores lots of what goes on in [Starter's Privilege](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10485558) as well. So check that out for reference, if you like. Basically, Flower/Matty is all about the service kink for me.
> 
> Also, chs 3, 4, and 5 all happen over the course of three days and are best read together for the full effect, imo.

For being kind of a dump, Thunder Bay had one hell of a location. Marc-Andre could say the same about plenty of places in Quebec, but standing out on a pier with Matty, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything as blue as the western shore of Lake Superior. The wind whipped around them, and Marc-Andre was back inside Matty’s pullover, reacquainting himself with his scent when he buried his nose in the collar. 

From waking up late, to brunch at a greasy diner, to this epic walk through the city, they’d kept to talk of their upcoming seasons. Matty was excited about Buckley coming up as head goal-tending coach, and Marc-Andre couldn’t begrudge him that. Bales would do great in North Carolina—they needed him down there—and Matty needed his own guy.

“It’s good they made the break quick,” Marc-Andre said, “but I feel bad for Mike. He had no idea it was coming. He should have.”

Matty gave him a sharp, uneasy look. “It’s been one hell of a year, eh? Big changes.”

Marc-Andre nodded. Hopefully good change. Eventually good change.

“Why’d, uh. Why did it take so long for them to bring Bales on board for you?” Matty asked. “I always wondered that.”

Marc-Andre shrugged. That anger was old and hardened. Not harmless, but behind him. “For a long time, the coaches thought it was me. Nothing a coach could fix.”

“Fuck, really?” Matty furrowed his eyebrows, offended on his behalf in a way that made Marc-Andre’s chest warm. “That’s bullshit. You needed consistency, and you never had it. That’s on them, not you.”

Marc-Andre shrugged again. What he needed was to not reflect on a period that far in his past. “Rookie development changed right as I was coming in. I was half on both sides. Nobody was sure what to do.”

“Asking you would have been a good start,” Matt grumbled with all the righteousness of a young franchise goaltender who, from the beginning, expected to be listened to.

As they walked back to town from the pier, Marc-Andre spotted a bar with patio seating and headed them in that direction. “It’s not always easy to see the situation when you’re in it,” he said. “I can’t change what happened.” He knew his value. He wanted to think he always had, but he’d been a kid in the NHL when kids in the NHL weren’t listened to very much.

Once they had a table and their beers had come, Matt regarded him warily and asked, “What about your vet? It was Aubin, right?” 

Marc-Andre gave him a twisted smile and wished for whiskey instead of beer. “Yeah.”

Fidgeting with his sunglasses, Matt finally slid them out of his hair and folded them on the table. He pushed his hair back with his hand and looked at Marc-Andre with eyes reflecting the blue of the lake. Matt was nervous, he realized. Nervous and unsure how far he should push.

Would wonders never cease.

Marc-Andre took a fortifying swallow of his drink. “J.S. was almost done my first year. It was him and Caron and me, but I played the most before I got sent back to Cape Breton. He was my backup and my vet.”

“But it wasn’t like us.” Matt didn’t phrase it like a question.

On the surface, yeah, it was. J.S. would walk at the end of the season. Marc-Andre was the future of the team, and J.S. knew it. But the league in 2003 was nothing like the league in 2017. The Pens in 2003 were nothing like the Pens in 2017. And Marc-Andre was not Jean-Sebastien Aubin. “The team was terrible,” he said, “and the league was different. It was nothing like us.” 

Watching Matty watch him—watching him search for what Marc-Andre meant but didn’t say—he knew no further explanation was owed. The details of old-school rookie development were well known. They were the stories passed around by the old guard. Badges of honor, both for what they’d survived and what they dished out when their turn came. 

_In my day, rookies knew their place. They didn’t talk back, and they were the ones bending over for vets, not the other way around. If they fucked up, they got fucked up. That was how we learned._

They were the stories rookies whispered about with scorn and curiosity both, keeping their voices low—eyes following the older guys on the team, looking for evidence of the bad old days. 

Matty was looking for it now. 

He wouldn’t find any. Aubin was nothing to Marc-Andre—barely even the memory of knees hitting the floor without his pads and a sharp smack across his mouth. 

Still, Marc-Andre was too proud not to speak his triumph aloud. “After the lockout, Sid came. Then Geno and Jordie. The game changed with them. The vets had nothing to teach them. All they could do was stay out of the way. When Mario Lemiux defers to his rookie, the league pays attention. I didn’t have a vet when I came back. I never did again.”

They stared each other down when Marc-Andre finished, and he could almost hear Matt’s gears whirring, see the questions piling up on his tongue. But Marc-Andre hadn’t come to Thunder Bay to wrestle with his early career or the fallout of his and Matt’s partnership. He hadn’t come to rub salt in cuts, either, or whatever the expression was. 

Though judging by Matty’s face, he may have, anyway.

“When I got called up,” Matt started carefully, “did you want to, uh. Did you want to do that stuff to me? Have it like it used to be for rookies and vets?” A wild flush rose up his neck as he spoke, and Marc-Andre’s face heated, too. 

This was what he’d come here for.

“No,” he answered honestly, and swallowed. “Not until you were my back-up again in the playoffs. I wished I could, then.”

“You wished you could, what?” he asked.

Marc-Andre took a swallow of his beer, his throat gone dry. “I wanted to lock us in a room and fuck like you were mine. My rookie. I thought about it so much when you came back. Then…” He shrugged. No need to relive what happened then.

Matty cut his gaze to the side and quickly back, his face bright red. Wondering whether he should care if he’d crossed a line, Marc-Andre stiffened when Matty called over the waitress. But he didn’t signal for the check. 

“Whiskey,” he said. “Shots.”

Marc-Andre could feel his expression of surprise when Matty looked back to him, daring him to say something.

Marc-Andre did not.

*

Day-drinking in the offseason was a skill Marc-Andre had acquired young and honed over the years. They all had to be so careful during the regular and postseasons, but in the summer, the parties started early with the sun high and hot. He was in his 30s now, so it wasn’t something he sought out the way he used to with Tanger and Duper back in the old days, but he could hold his own.

The whiskey burned a trail from his throat to his stomach and radiated to his fingers. It kept him warm through the walk back to Matty’s condo as the sun sank lower and the temperature started to drop. It felt like an insulating blanket when Matty bumped up against him and stayed there, his knuckles brushing against Marc-Andre’s until one of them—he wasn’t sure who—grabbed on and didn’t let go.

He stumbled up the stairs in a warm, fuzzy haze, Matty not letting go, even when he could have used his free hand to find the right key to his door. Matty didn’t let go on their way down the hall, kicking off his shoes as he went. He didn’t let go as they crossed into his room. But Marc-Andre would have followed. 

Without looking back at him, Matt finally dropped his hand, knelt up onto the bed, and faced the wall, the rush of his breath almost masked by the blood pounding in Marc-Andre’s ears. 

“Matty,” he said carefully, his voice already a little rough.

Matt dropped to all fours. “Come on,” he said. “Do it.”

Marc-Andre swallowed heavily as he kicked off his shoes and climbed up after him. Matty’s bed was firm and new, expensive enough that it barely dipped under Marc-Andre’s weight. Matty, though—when Marc-Andre touched his sides—he hissed in a slow breath and shivered hard. 

Pulling him upright on his knees, Marc-Andre shifted in close behind him and spread his hands down his front to the waist of his jeans. Matt held his breath, going perfectly still until Marc-Andre cupped between his legs and found him hard as nails. The breath rushed from his lungs as Marc-Andre gripped him. 

“Shit,” he said on the exhale.

Marc-Andre bit the side of his throat, then said into his ear, “Want to fuck like you’re mine?”

Matt nodded and said nothing, tipping his head forward for Marc-Andre to mouth at the back of his neck. Marc-Andre muscled him forward until he could press his hands flat against the wall. Matt’s body was a hot, slim line along his front, and Marc-Andre held him tight enough he could feel Matt fighting to expand his ribs on each breath. 

Unhooking Matty’s belt and thumbing open his fly, Marc-Andre slid his hand along that trail of hair he’d missed so much and inside to touch hot, sweat-damp skin. Matty groaned and tipped his head against the wall, bucking his hips a little into Marc-Andre’s hand, and Marc-Andre ground against his ass with a filthy curl of his own. 

Yeah, he’d thought about this a few times in anger. The unfairness of guys from his draft class and before, coming into a league that put rookies on their knees to learn their place, then hitting their prime when the philosophy was reversed. Taking it at both ends of their careers in a way fewer and fewer guys could relate to. He was the longest-tenured Penguin, and only Cully and Hainsey had been where he’d been. Like hell would he ever go there with them for war stories, though. They were the same everywhere, and they were none of his business.

Marc-Andre stripped Matt out of his old-man cardigan and the t-shirt underneath, then hooked his arm over the front of his bare shoulder, reached up to dig his fingers into his hair, and dragged his head back. He was so close, he could see in profile the curl of Matty’s eyelashes, his lips pressed in a tight line. 

Whatever he’d felt during the last two seasons, the kiss he pressed to Matty’s jaw was not in anger. Matty’s throat worked in a swallow and his mouth dropped open on a ragged breath as Marc-Andre jerked him off in a rough grip. 

“Comme ça?” he asked, and Matty twitched a nod, held in place with Marc-Andre’s hand still tight in his hair. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I have—there’s—in the drawer.”

Reluctantly, Marc-Andre let go to lean over and yank the nightstand open. He found a few loose condom packets inside and a bottle of lube. The condoms made his stomach clench in a way that upset the booze working through his system, so he left them and grabbed the lube. 

Matty saw him do it and met his gaze with uncertainty, caught in the middle of dragging his jeans and underwear down over his ass. 

“You can fuck me,” he said. “I’m ready.”

Marc-Andre wet his lips and shook his head. “I’m not. We’re doing it this way.”

He shrugged out of Matt’s pullover, fumbled open his belt and fly, and somehow in the reverse of a situation they’d been in dozens of times over the last two years, felt new and unsteady. His hands shook slicking himself up, but he thought the failing light outside probably masked it. 

At the first touch behind his balls, Matt flinched. “What—”

“Trust me, Matty,” he said, and slicked him up, too, until they were both sloppy with it, pants shoved down as far as the angle of their legs allowed. Matt leaned back against Marc-Andre’s chest.

“I do,” he said. “I always did. Fuck, Marc…”

Hand around Matt’s cock, Marc-Andre tightened his grip at the sound of his name on Matt’s lips. The first he’d ever heard it. He wrapped his other arm tight across Matt’s front and fucked between his thighs, trapping a groan behind his own lips at the slick friction of skin and coarse hair. 

Matt rocked forward with the motion and braced himself more steadily against the wall, tipping his head down with a moan. With the next thrust, he went to one elbow and shifted his legs to settle Marc-Andre more squarely against him. His back bowed, and Marc-Andre glanced down at the curve of his spine, emotion tightening his throat. Fucking harder between Matty’s legs, against the vulnerable skin of his balls and to the base of his cock, he felt—

Well, it wasn’t so different from what they’d done since the beginning. When Matt had done what rookies did and fucked him, riding high after wins. Or feeling low after losses. But there were also the times he’d gone to his knees and sucked out an orgasm that had tugged right at the base of Marc-Andre’s spine. They’d stayed there after, Marc-Andre bent over Matty’s head where he rested against his thigh, his fingers buried in Matty’s hair. 

With every thrust, he pushed Matty into his grip until he was twitching and moaning, arching and gasping at Marc-Andre’s touch. 

He was easy. 

Marc-Andre grinned in secret at this realization and rubbed his stubbly chin against the top of Matt’s spine just to feel him shiver.

With a choked off sound, Matty craned his neck and bit Marc-Andre’s thumb where he clasped the cap of his shoulder. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his cock in Marc-Andre’s hand was stiff and hot, his balls tight and high.

“Come on, Matty,” Marc-Andre said against the short hairs at the back of his neck. 

Matt was still for a moment, a held breath, before he jerked hard in Marc-Andre’s arms and spilled over his knuckles with a shout, his breath ragged as the tension slowly melted from his body and he sagged forward. When Marc-Andre shifted back enough to take himself in hand, Matt followed on his knees, bracing his forearm against the wall and pillowing his head there, his back long and pale for Marc-Andre to—to—

He came with a curse, striping Matty’s skin and nearly buckling forward except for his grip on Matty’s side. The orgasm kicked low in his belly, powerful and rough. It’d been a while. 

They stayed there until Marc-Andre’s quads were tired and he dropped back onto his heels. Matty did the same, and it was the mess dripping down his spine that finally got Marc-Andre moving, reaching over again to the nightstand, this time for tissues. He’d begun to wipe Matty down when he shifted abruptly to the side and stood up, his belt buckle clanking and his knees a bit wobbly underneath him. 

“I’m gonna shower,” Matt said. 

“Okay.” Judging by how quickly he retreated to the bathroom and shut the door, Marc-Andre was not invited. He used up the tissues on himself, though he’d been much neater and gotten most of it on Matty’s back.

“Fuck,” he said quietly and climbed a bit more slowly to his feet. Returning to the guest room, he shed his jeans and debated what to do next. It was almost dark out and they hadn’t eaten dinner yet. He’d probably had enough to drink that he could easily pass out—especially after sex—but he’d wake up with a headache if he did that. 

Stepping into sweats and shrugging into a clean t-shirt, he supposed he would find out if Matty could look him in the eye again over another takeout dinner, and headed to the kitchen to look for menus.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for adding a chapter! But it's only a short epilogue-type thing. No cliff hanger, I don't think. Also, a thank you to sparcck, who said something really smart about MAF and how everyone handles his emotional distress. It basically explains this fic. So. *blows kisses*

Matt jerked off again in the shower to the feel of Flower behind him, steady and warm. It’d been…maybe twenty minutes since he’d come all over his sheets and Flower’s hand, and here he was, ready for it again. He imagined Marc-Andre in him for real, buried in him. Joined to him like Matt had been so many times during the season. Only this time, maybe they’d face each other, and the image of Flower curled over him like that, Matt’s legs around his waist, Flower flushed and flustered, had him exhaling sharply through a second orgasm.

As he caught his breath and rinsed off, he thought, _I was right. A fucking disaster._

*

They ordered pizza and wings, and Flower didn’t try to talk to him. Which was so typical, Matt wondered how he could have possibly missed it in the two years they’d known each other. Flower was never without something to say—a joke to crack or a piece of advice or words of encouragement—but somehow, he never _said_ anything. 

It was maddening, now that Matt knew there was plenty he could say if he wanted to. If he trusted Matt enough to say it.

They ate their dinner and didn’t drink anything else, and an hour earlier, Flower had held him tighter than he’d ever done before. He’d kissed Matt’s throat and his jaw like he wanted to—

And he’d done it because Matt had invited him to even the scales. To get back some of what Matt had taken, and taken for granted. 

It was owed. Flower had done a masterful job of disguising how unhappy he was. Of course, Matt knew he’d wanted to start more games and get more playing time. Of course, he knew about the looming cap crunch and the expansion draft. He _knew_ Flower’s time with the team was coming to an end. He hadn’t considered that Flower’s anger had extended to the support he’d offered Matt. To the…the private jokes and the sex and all the unspoken stuff that Matt had felt so strongly, he’d never thought to doubt it.

Marc-Andre could be nothing but himself. And yet, somehow, he’d hidden everything that mattered.

And here he sat on Matt’s balcony, working his way through his fourth slice, just looking at the view and _not saying anything._

Matt didn’t want to apologize again. He didn’t want to feel like shit anymore for how close he’d thought they were. He wanted Flower to _say something._

“I wish you’d just told me, man.” Matt let the words slip out and attributed their honesty to the last of his whiskey buzz. 

Flower looked at him with something like resignation and dread and put down his slice of pizza. “Told you what?”

“That I asked too much from you,” he gritted, anger rising at that look. “You hated it—all of it. If you’d just said so, I’d have—”

“Left me alone and gone on your way? I just sit there on the bench every fucking game with nothing to do?”

“Better than taking it from some rookie you could hardly stand.”

“I liked it just fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“I liked _you_ just fine.”

Matt stared at him, his mouth hanging open. Marc-Andre stared right back, defiantly lifting his chin and making no sense at all. 

“Since when?”

He rolled his eyes and didn’t smile even a little. “From the beginning, Matty. I like to watch you play. I like to help you get better. I like to make you laugh. I like you to make me laugh.” Marc-Andre shrugged. A helpless, hopeless gesture.

“But…”

“You took my job and my city. And I like you. I came here to see, and it’s still true. It still sucks.” 

Matt felt like his heart was beating too slowly for how quickly life was coming at him right now. Flower turned his gaze out to the lake again. 

“But you’re going to Vegas,” Matt finally said. 

He nodded. “Yup.”

“You like me, and you’re going to Vegas.”

“I know.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You know I was leaving for months.”

“Yeah, and I thought you hated my guts.”

Flower scoffed. “Well, I didn’t. I don’t.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“You think you wouldn’t know if I hated your guts?”

“I’m not too fucking sure, actually,” Matt answered, half laughing. “I thought, yes, I would have known. That’s what fucked me up. I thought you did like me. I thought we were…” He took a long breath. “But then all that stuff you said was—it was right on. So, I wasn’t sure anymore. I thought maybe I’d been wrong the whole time. And I hate being wrong.”

“I know.” Marc-Andre rubbed the patch of hair below his lip. “It’s my fault. You were my first real rookie, and I—I got too close. The first time, and I fucked up.”

“You didn’t fuck up,” Matt said, voice sharpening. “You were—everything to me.”

Flower exhaled sharply and shook his head. “Exactly. That’s not supposed to happen.”

“What do you mean?” He almost flinched back. 

Flower looked like he’d rather jump off the balcony than continue the conversation, but like hell was Matt letting him off that easy.

“It’s not like this for Shearsy and Sid,” Flower finally said. “Or Rusty and Geno.” Like that was evidence, or something.

“Maybe. But you know Dumo is crazy about Tanger. You’ve seen them.” His face heated even as he said it at what he was admitting by comparing them. It was a betrayal of Brian’s confidence, too, but he bet Marc-Andre already knew, given how close he and Tanger were. The way he pressed his lips together told Matt he was right.

“What good is that going to do us, huh?” Flower asked quietly. “It’s not supposed to work like that.”

“You wish it didn’t.”

Flower nodded. “I hate it. I don’t want to feel like this.” He was rigid and unhappy. Uncomfortable. But this wasn’t a bad goal he could shake off. Spit a few curses, squirt water in his face, and move on. 

“You won’t have to for much longer,” Matt said. “I’ll only see you twice a year—that ought to help.”

Marc-Andre shot him a sharp, sidelong glance, doubtless unimpressed with Matt’s effort to hide the bitterness in his voice. 

And Matt had had enough. He managed not to say anything else childish or angry and instead shoved his chair back as he stood. “I’m going to bed. Just bring the pizza box in when you’re done. I don’t want squirrels up here.” He turned toward the balcony door.

“Matty, I didn’t mean…” 

Flower’s voice followed him inside, and Matt was proud in a way that felt terrible that he didn’t look back.

*

Marc-Andre packed his bag as the sun rose. His flight to Vegas wasn’t for another two days, but he’d definitely overstayed his welcome. Last night should have been as satisfying as telling Matty exactly how he’d felt at clean-out day. Everything finally in the open between them. 

Instead, it felt like the moments right after he’d said his peace. A sick pit of regret and unease in his stomach. The feeling that no matter what he said, it cut both ways, hurting anyone he reached out to. He didn’t want to hurt Matty, but every time he opened his mouth, all that came out were knives. 

He’d texted Jordie the night before after Matt had gone to bed and cleared arriving at his place a day ahead of schedule. Jordie would pick him up downtown in a couple hours. All he had to do was say goodbye, which would be a quick affair. He was keeping his mouth shut this time. 

Shouldering his duffle, Marc-Andre picked up the towel from his shower and hung it over the door to dry. Poking his head in Matt’s bedroom, he found it empty and groaned. He’d hoped to make this short and simple, preferably with Matty still half-asleep. 

Instead he found him in the kitchen making coffee, grinding the beans and boiling water for his French press like the snob he was. He couldn’t cook to save his life, but he made great, pretentious coffee. 

“Hey.” Marc-Andre set his bag by the kitchen doorway. “I hope the shower didn’t wake you up.”

Matt shrugged bony shoulders as he dumped the ground coffee into the metal carafe. “If it hadn’t, you’d have left without saying goodbye, so. Whatever.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he answered quietly. “I’m sorry, Matty.”

“For what—telling the truth?”

“For being shit at it.”

“Nah, you made yourself pretty clear.” The teakettle on the stove started to whistle, and he pulled it off the flame, pouring the water onto the grounds and covering it with the plunger. When he’d done that, he turned to face Marc-Andre and braced both hands on the counter behind him, leaning back. His already narrow face was haggard, his eyes puffy and tired. 

“You can wait for the coffee,” he said, “or you can just go.”

Marc-Andre’s throat closed, and he couldn’t quite swallow around the lump wedged into it. Matt was dressed in black sweats and a white t-shirt—skinny and sleep-deprived and still handsome. Heartbroken. 

In the end, it was speaking aloud that finally worked the lump free. “It was nobody’s fault, what happened to us," he said. "I don’t blame you. I just wish I knew what I was doing better. I wish I didn’t fall into this thing with you, because it would be easier to leave. But I did. I hate it, because it hurts. And I don’t hate it at all, because I could never hate you. I wish every time I talked to you, I didn’t hurt you, but I keep doing that. I don’t want to, but I’m—”

He shook his head.

“But you’re hurt,” Matty said quietly. “And when you’re hurt, it hurts everyone around you, because it’s the last thing in the world they want.”

Marc-Andre managed a nod. “I know how lucky I am to have the friends I have. To have you. I didn’t want to say anything. I wanted to leave it and just go. Instead I did this.” He swept his hand around the kitchen to encompass everything. 

The tightness around Matty’s eyes eased, his expression softening. “I’m not sorry you were honest with me.”

Marc-Andre huffed his skepticism. Nobody seemed sorry for his honesty. Or their own. Not Sid in his hotel room in Vegas. Not Horny or Kuni or Olli or Geno, who all shed a few tears for him. More than a few, in Horny’s case. Not Tanger, who’d made sure to tell him every time they were together this summer how glad he was they lived so close. How lucky he was to have Marc-Andre one town over. 

So much telling. So many feelings forced on him because there wouldn’t be another chance. It was horrible. And now there was this he couldn't seem to leave alone.

Matt dragged a hand through his hair and didn’t look at Marc-Andre as he spoke. “I love you,” he said quietly. “Lots of people do, though, so however you wanna take it, I just wanted you to know.”

Marc-Andre’s heart clenched, flooding his face with heat. “Fuck, Matty.”

“And we definitely don’t have to talk about it.” He turned abruptly and pushed the plunger down on his French press. Then he fussed with it some more, covering it with a dish towel to keep the coffee warmer. Or maybe just to have something to do with his hands. “If you want to go, you can go.” He turned around again, rubbing briskly at one eye.

“Yeah. I should…” Marc-Andre picked up his duffle and settled the strap across his shoulder, trying not to see that Matt’s eyes were wet. Trying to give him that courtesy. “I’ll see you around,” he said. 

“No, you won’t.” Matty’s voice cracked, and he cleared it forcefully. And Marc-Andre got the hell out of there. A clean break. The sound of the door shutting behind him was heavy and final, and he drew in a deep breath. 

He made it down the hall and partway down the flight of stairs before his pace slowed. His hand gripped the railing too tight, and his legs felt like he’d just bag-skated in full gear. Every step he took was a step he’d have to take back if he regretted any of this. And the further he got, the less likely he was to do that. He was still in Matty’s building. Two floors down and he’d be out. He would never come back. He knew himself that well—he wouldn’t come back.

He hadn’t followed Sid out of his hotel room, and it had nearly killed him. But there was something unshakable about Sid. Like Tanger and Duper and Geno. He’d see them less, but he didn’t need to see them every day to know they were still his very best friends.

Matty was a different animal. Matty had been just for him. Old school or new school, they had been each other's.

The door on the landing slammed open and Matt flew out, sweater half on, a cap over his hair. He had no shoes on. He was at the top of the stairs before he noticed Marc-Andre had hardly made it halfway down the first flight, stalled there with his knees locked.

“Oh,” he said, freezing in place.

Marc-Andre exhaled a strangled laugh. “Are you going somewhere?”

Matt shook his head, all evidence to the contrary. His eyes were wide and very blue in the sunlight streaming in the side window.

“Can I—” Marc-Andre’s throat caught. “Can I change my mind and stay today, actually?” 

He took a tentative step toward Matt, and Matt sucked in a sharp breath. He nodded and came partway down to meet him, grabbed Marc-Andre by the front of his shirt, and pulled him back up the stairs. “That was dumb, what I said before. I don’t want you to go at all." He hesitated only a second before kissing Marc-Andre square on the mouth, eyes locked until they were too close to see.

They hadn’t done this very much. They hadn’t at all since he’d come to Thunder Bay. Marc-Andre grabbed him around the waist with both arms—it was easy to do. Not like hugging Sid. Matty was just the right size. 

And he kissed like a kid. Plenty of tongue and scraggly beard and enough enthusiasm for the both of them. Marc-Andre grinned into it and laughed through his nose, walking him backward toward his door. But with his eyes closed, he miscalculated, and they bumped into the doorframe. Relief spreading through him to his fingertips, Marc-Andre tried to draw back. Matty followed and put a big hand on his face to keep him close.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said again. And there was something both romantic and awful about the roughness of his voice. The redness around his eyes.

Marc-Andre nodded and tipped his chin up just enough to kiss him again. “I’m not.”

“Come back inside.”

That would require moving from where he had Matt pressed snugly between himself and the doorframe, so Marc-Andre kissed him instead. Matt groaned into it and surged up against him, forcing him to brace one hand against the wall. 

“Come back inside, _please_ ,” Matt said. 

This time, Marc-Andre listened. He tilted his head against Matt’s where he’d slouched a bit against the wall. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Matt fumbled for the knob and tipped them sideways when he discovered he hadn’t shut the door the whole way. They tripped, laughing, into his foyer, and Marc-Andre shut it firmly behind them.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me in this grieving process! Hopefully we (I) can all move on with our lives now. Until hockey starts.
> 
> See the end of the chapter for some links and story notes!

Matt lay between Flower’s legs with his head on Flower’s thigh, staring with what had to be a really dumb expression at his soft, shiny dick. That dick, until recently, had been down Matt’s throat, and he could still taste salt-bitter come in the back of his mouth.

Flower’s fingers were tangled in his hair, and he scratched gently against Matt’s scalp, lighting up what felt like every nerve along his shoulders and spine. “Did I ever say that you’re very good at sucking me off?” he asked, words slow.

Matt smiled and spoke without lifting his head. “Yeah. You always gave plenty of good feedback and positive reinforcement. Lots of encouragement.”

“Hm. That was nice of me. I must have been a good vet.”

Matt mumbled his agreement as he smoothed his palm across Flower’s stomach. It was soft and relaxed now, but Matt had traced the lines of his abdominals before and felt only tense muscle. Tense with pleasure or anger or both. 

It could be both. Marc-Andre had carried both with him for the last two seasons. Matt could recognize that now, and he should have sooner. All that shit he read on mindfulness and staying in the moment had maybe blinded him to the bigger picture. That, or he’d been an ignorant kid falling for his mentor. A mortifying thought but for the evidence that Flower might have a thing for him too.

Flower dozing in the afterglow presented some compelling evidence.

The complexity of their situation didn’t mean either Flower’s anger or his affection were worth more than the other. The complexity of their situation meant the way forward remained unclear. Though probably their situation wasn’t as complex as it had been, for reasons Matt didn’t want to confront just now.

At least one thing was true.

“I’m glad you’ve got your own net again. I’m glad we’re not fighting for it anymore.”

Flower’s hand stilled in his hair. “It wasn’t much of a fight, but I agree.”

Matt could guess at what he meant. Flower’s first concussion had been the beginning of the end for him. A change in the wind. Once Matt had come up from Wilkes, Coach wanted him in net. Knowing better than to try to pull apart how proud he was from how sorry he was or wasn’t, Matt instead pushed up to his knees and braced himself over Flower on all fours. Flower looked up at him with sleepy dark eyes. Maybe they’d both slept like shit the night before.

“Now that I’m not your rookie,” Matt began, “do you not want me like this anymore? Do you want me flat on my back or bent over for you instead?” The idea wasn’t nearly as terrifying as it’d been. The reality was pretty fucking awesome.

Flower blinked at him a few times and shifted his shoulders uneasily. Then he rolled over between Matt’s arms to his front, presenting his straight, strong back. Marc-Andre was shaped like Matt, but Matt had a long way to go if he wanted to look like Marc-Andre sometime during his own career. If he wanted to stay healthy like Marc-Andre did.

“Come on,” he said to Matt, pulling him out of his daze. “Let’s see.”

Carefully lowering himself, Matt pressed him down into the bed and tucked his arms up beneath the pillow alongside Flower’s. “Like this?”

“Yeah.” Flower breathed in deep, his lungs inflating and pushing against Matt’s weight. He let the breath out on a long sigh. “Like that.” He rubbed his nose against the pillow and settled himself. “Yeah, I still like this,” he said. “We can still do this.”

And even though he’d gotten off before—his hand on himself, with Flower’s cock in his mouth—Matt’s dick gave a brave little twitch at the thought of having Flower like this again. 

Someday. Maybe once during the regular season, if he was lucky. Because he wanted it other way, too. He wanted it basically every way, as often as he could get it. Which would be hardly ever, now. 

He groaned. There was that stuff he didn’t want to confront. “I can’t believe you’re going to fucking _Vegas_.”

“I can’t believe you’re just realizing I’m going to Vegas.” Flower’s voice, muffled by the pillow, vibrated through Matt’s ribs in a way he would hardly ever get to feel anymore. His sharp ankle bones poked against Matt’s in a way they hardly ever would again. His shiny black hair tickled Matt’s nose for maybe the last time for _months_. Maybe ever.

“Fuck.” He tightened his arms along Flower’s and fought to breathe. He was not a crier. He was not a stress-puker. He was not a yeller. Matt did not _get_ emotional. 

This visit was making him a liar. 

Because he really was awesome at this, Flower latched their fingers together and squeezed. “It’s going to be all right, Matty.”

Because Matt apparently sucked at this, he said, “You’re only saying that—”

“I’m saying it because it’s true. Just because I was your vet doesn’t mean I didn’t mean what I said. I was always honest with you.”

Matt followed that sentence around to its conclusion and blew out an unsteady breath onto the damp skin of Marc-Andre’s throat. “Sort of,” he hedged. What he’d said to Matt might have always been true, but what he _didn’t_ say could have filled a second volume on their partnership.

But they both let it lie for a while, drifting in the mid-morning sun streaming in through the blinds. 

“Will you be honest with me, now?” Matt asked later, mouth pressed to Flower’s shoulder.

“I’ll try,” he answered. 

“Do you want this to go anywhere after you leave?”

“‘This,’ like…”

“‘This,’ like ‘us.’ You and me. I’m just a chapter in your career. That time you had a rookie. You’ll get another one in Vegas before long, I bet. You’re great for development.” A thought that gave him poisonous, ugly feelings he wanted to stay far away from. 

Flower’s lungs deflated sharply under him as he huffed. “You always do that. You’re not just some rookie. You know you’re not.”

“You’re gonna leave, and all I’ll have is what you taught me. All I’ll have is trying to be like you every day you’re not there.” 

Flower shifted his hips and shoved with his knee, rolling them over. But he didn’t turn to face Matt. Instead, he grabbed Matt’s top hand and pulled it tight across his front. Matt tucked his knees in behind Flower’s and closed his eyes. 

“You’ll have more than that,” Flower said.

*

In the end, Marc-Andre stayed for the rest of the day, and they didn’t get out of bed until they were both too hungry and sore to fuck again. 

In the end, he almost cancelled his visit with Jordie altogether, but decided to bring Matt with him instead. 

In the end, it took all four days of his visit and twenty minutes of kisses in a Thunder Bay airport bathroom stall to say goodbye.

 

End

~Maybe time running out is a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric from Jason Isbell's "If We Were Vampires", which is an old-marrieds song, and Matty and Flower are not old marrieds, but [give it a listen](https://youtu.be/fyiEJaf-IzE) if you'd like a good cry about mortality and the short time we have together on this earth.
> 
> Also, these Ryan Adams tunes were on repeat. They're from his breakup album about Mandy Moore (I thought they were forever!), which wrecked me, and it fits the mood, I think. ["Outbound Train"](https://youtu.be/IfIRbjchPz0) and ["We Disappear"](https://youtu.be/m9On447CCxw?list=PLYXgrm8G-aHwhfJdOB0RJLqPueH1lVABC). The title of the fic is obviously from We Disappear.
> 
> Finally, even though I didn't directly talk about Flower seeing a sports psychologist, and I obviously have no knowledge of what went on, the stuff he's talked about regarding therapy and how to deal with intense emotion GREATLY informed this story, particularly his skill at moving on from stuff that upsets him. Dude does not like to hang out in his feelings.
> 
> Watch [this video](https://www.nhl.com/penguins/video/clean-out-day-fleury-0615/t-277437428/c-52239303) (with tissues) if you want a visual of how Flower deals with the stuff he doesn't want to deal with. And [read this](http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/penguins/2017/08/10/matt-murray-marc-andre-fleury-relationship-penguins-goalie/stories/201708100052) Miraculous piece on Matt Murray if you want to understand that kid in 5 minutes or less, bless his little hipster heart.
> 
> Come say hi at my [tumblr](http://itstartledme.tumblr.com/), if you like!


End file.
